by Nancy N. Rue
Other books in the growing Faithgirlz!™ library
The Faithgirlz!™ Bible
NIV Faithgirlz!™ Backpack Bible
My Faithgirlz!™ Journal
The Sophie Series
Sophie’s World (Book One)
Sophie’s Secret (Book Two)
Sophie Under Pressure (Book Three)
Sophie Steps Up (Book Four)
Sophie’s First Dance (Book Five)
Sophie’s Stormy Summer (Book Six)
Sophie’s Friendship Fiasco (Book Seven)
Sophie and the New Girl (Book Eight)
Sophie Flakes Out (Book Nine)
Sophie Loves Jimmy (Book Ten)
Sophie’s Drama (Book Eleven)
Nonfiction
No Boys Allowed: Devotions for Girls
Girlz Rock: Devotions for You
Chick Chat: More Devotions for Girls
Shine On, Girl!: Devotions to Make You Sparkle
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ZONDERKIDZ
SOPHiE Gets Real
Previously titled Sophie’s Encore
Copyright © 2006, 2009 by Nancy Rue
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Zondervan.
ePub Edition July 2009 ISBN: 978-0-310-56853-7
This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are products of author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Requests for information should be addressed to:
Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rue, Nancy N.
[Sophie’s encore]
Sophie gets real / Nancy Rue. Rue, Nancy N.
p. cm. (Sophie series ; [bk. 12]) (Faithgirlz)
Previously published in 2006 under the title, Sophie’s encore.
Summary: Although Sophie’s faith is shaken after her baby sister is born with Down Syndrome and as she tries to help a troubled girl at her school, the other Corn Flakes and Dr. Peter are there to lend their support.
ISBN 978-0-310-71845-1
[1. Cliques (Sociology)—Fiction. 2. Down syndrome—Fiction. 3. People with mental disabilities—Fiction. 4. Schools—Fiction. 5. Christian life—Fiction. 6. Virginia—Fiction.]
I. Title.
PZ7.R88515Sjke 2006
[Fic] — dc22
2009004602
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All Scripture quotations unless otherwise noted are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.
Any Internet addresses (websites, blogs, etc.) and telephone numbers printed in this book are offered as a resource. They are not intended in any way to be or imply an endorsement by Zondervan, nor does Zondervan vouch for the content of these sites and numbers for the life of this book.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Published in association with the literary agency of Alive Communications, Inc., 7680 Goddard Street, Suite 200, Colorado Springs, CO 80920. www.alivecommunucations.com
Zonderkidz is a trademark of Zondervan.
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09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 • 24 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Cover Page
Title Page
Copyright
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Glossary
About The Publisher
Share Your Thoughts
So we fix our eyes not on what is seen,
but on what is unseen.
For what is seen is temporary,
but what is unseen is eternal.
— 2 CORINTHIANS 4:18
One
Sophie. Yo — Sophie LaCroix!” Sophie looked up at her best friend Fiona and blinked behind her glasses.
Fiona pointed. “Are you putting both feet into one leg of your sweats for a reason?”
Sophie looked down at the bulging left side of her PE sweatpants. Fiona sat beside her on the locker-room bench, one magic-gray eye gleaming. The other one was hidden by the golden brown strand of hair that always fell over it.
“Are you thinking up a new character for a film?” Fiona said. “Yes! We haven’t done a movie in so long that the whole Film Club’s going into withdrawal.”
Sophie shook her honey brown hair out of her face. “I wish that was what I was thinking about.” She got untangled and pulled on her PE sweatpants. “I can’t keep my mind off my mom.”
“What’s wrong with your mom?” Willoughby, another member of their group, bounded in and stopped in front of Sophie, brown curls springing in all directions. “Um, Soph? How come you have your sweats on backward?”
Sophie groaned and wriggled out of them again.
“Her mom’s been in labor since early this morning,” Fiona told Willoughby. “Sophie’s a little freaked.”
Willoughby’s hazel eyes, always big to begin with, widened to Frisbee size. “Your mom’s having your baby sister today? Why are you even here? Why aren’t you at the hospital?”
“It could take all day, and it’s not like Sophie could help deliver the baby,” Fiona said. “She can’t even get her clothes on right. Soph, your shirt’s on inside out.”
Sophie looked down at the fuzzy backward letters GMMS — for Great Marsh Middle School — and groaned again. “I’m not even gonna be able to change her diapers. I’ll probably put them on her head or something.”
“You put diapers on somebody’s head?” At the end of the bench, Kitty’s china-blue eyes went almost as round as Willoughby’s.
Kitty was the fourth member of their six-girl group. She was just back from changing clothes in a restroom stall. Although she was finally sprouting spiky hair after her chemotherapy for leukemia, she still had a tiny hole in her chest. It let the doctors put in medicine and take out blood without sticking her every time. She always changed her shirt out of sight of the girls a few lockers down — the mostly rude ones Sophie and her friends secretly referred to as the “Corn Pops.” Those girls decided what was cool. A hole in the middle of somebody’s chest wasn’t.
“What about diapers on her head?” Kitty asked again.
“She hasn’t put Pampers on her little cranium so far,” Fiona said. “But then, the baby’s not born yet.”
“Any minute now,” Willoughby told Kitty. And then she let out one of her shrieks that always reminded Sophie of a hyper poodle yelping.
Kitty giggled and threw her arms around Sophie, just as Sophie pulled her T-shirt off over her head. A few tangled moments passed before Sophie could get it off her face and breathe again. By then, Darbie and Maggie, the final two, were there. Maggie
shook her head, splashing her Cuban-dark bob against her cheeks.
“You can’t wear your shirt for a hat,” she said, words thudding out in their usual matter-of-fact blocks.
Maggie was the most somber of the group, but that was just Maggie. Although the lip-curling Corn Pops called them “Flakes” — which was where their very-secret name “Corn Flakes” came from — Sophie and her friends let each other be the unique selves they figured God made them to be.
Only at the moment, Sophie wasn’t feeling unique. Just weird.
Darbie hooked her straight reddish hair behind her ears. “You’re all in flitters, Sophie,” she said.
Darbie still used her Irish expressions, even though she had been in the U.S. for more than a year. Sophie loved that, but she barely noticed now.
“Her mom’s having her baby sister right this very minute,” Willoughby told Darbie, with a poodle-shriek. “Our newest little Corn fl— ”
“Shhhh!” Maggie said.
Willoughby slapped her hand over her own mouth, and Sophie glanced down the row of lockers to make sure the Corn Pops hadn’t heard. It didn’t look like it.
Nobody outside the group knew about the Corn Flake name. Being a Corn Flake was a special thing, with a code that was all about behaving the way God wanted them to. The Corn Flakes had agreed a long time ago that they couldn’t risk Julia and her group finding out and twisting it all up.
Still, it was hard not to talk about it, especially when it came to Sophie’s soon-to-be-born sister. They had plans for making her the newest Corn Flake.
“Sophie’s so nervous about the baby,” Kitty said to Maggie, “she’s about to put a diaper on her head.”
“Of course she is,” Julia Cummings said as she walked by. She was the leader of the three Corn Pops, who all rolled their eyes in agreement.
But that was all they did. The Corn Pops had gotten into so much trouble for bullying the Corn Flakes in the first six months of seventh grade, they didn’t dare try anything they’d get caught at. Or, as Fiona put it, there would be “dire consequences.” That was Fiona language for “big trouble.”
And now that her Corn Flakes were all around her, helping her get her shoes on the right feet, Sophie didn’t feel quite so much like the pieces of her world had been mixed up and put back together wrong. A new baby was big stuff, but Fiona, Willoughby, Kitty, Darbie, and Maggie could make even that easier.
As the Flakes hurried into the gym, a whistle blew and Sophie jumped.
“Does Coach Yates have to toot that thing so hard?” Willoughby said. “Doesn’t she know Sophie’s mom is having a baby?”
“I don’t think so,” Maggie said.
Coach Yates, their PE teacher with a graying ponytail so tight it stretched her eyes at the corners, gave the whistle another blast.
The Flakes skittered into line for roll call. In the next row, a way-skinny boy with a big, loose grin that filled up most of his face turned to Sophie. “So when’s Film Club gonna do another film?” His voice cracked, as usual, bringing titters from Corn Pop Cassie in front of him.
“Not now, Vincent,” Kitty said. “Her mom’s having a baby.”
“What’s that got to do with it?” Vincent said.
“Boys,” Willoughby whispered to Sophie. “They’re so clueless.”
Sophie nodded, but she really did wish she was deep in daydreams about a new and fabulous character for a Film Club movie the Corn Flakes could make with the Lucky Charms. That was the name the Flakes had secretly given to Vincent and his two friends, partly because they weren’t absurd little creeps like some boys they knew.
“Is your mom okay?” Jimmy Wythe said. His eyes, as blue as a swimming pool, were soft.
But before Sophie could answer him, Coach Yates gave an extra-obnoxious blast on the whistle that brought even the Corn Pops out of their huddle.
“Singletary!” Coach Yates yelled. Nobody could holler like Coach Yates. “Are you looking for a detention your first day? Get yourself down from there.”
Sophie looked in the direction Coach Yates was yelling. Her mouth dropped open.
“Somebody’s making a holy show of herself,” Darbie said.
A girl with bright red hair was shimmying up one of the volleyball poles. Even with Coach Yates still shouting, the girl reached the top and looked down triumphantly at the entire seventh-grade PE class.
“Who is that?” Julia said.
Beside her, Corn Pop Anne-Stuart gave the usual sniff. Sophie wondered where all the stuff in Anne-Stuart’s nose could possibly come from.
“She’d better get down,” Maggie said. “She’s gonna get in so much trouble.”
“Is she mental?” Darbie said.
Sophie was sure of it when Red-Haired Girl suddenly let go of the pole and leaped to the gym floor. Her flight landed in a roll that brought her right to Coach Yates’ feet. Vincent clapped — until Coach Yates shot him the Coach Hates look.
She ordered them all to get into their teams for warm-up and pulled Red-Haired Girl to her feet. Coach Nanini joined them — the big man Sophie thought of as Coach Virile. He had muscles as big as hams and one large eyebrow that ridged his eyes. He was the boys’ coach, but Sophie secretly called him hers.
Sophie tried to hear what he was saying to Red-Haired Girl in his high-pitched-for-a-man voice, but Coach Yates blasted the whistle yet again and sent them all scurrying. The Charms went to get a ball while the Corn Flakes gathered on their court.
“What was that about?” Fiona said.
“She’ll get double detention for it,” Maggie said.
Fiona rolled her eyes. “That’s, like, something my little brother would do.”
“So’s that,” Darbie said, nodding toward Coach Nanini and Red-Haired Girl. The girl was rolling the front of her T-shirt onto her arms so that her bare belly showed. Somebody on another team yelled, “Woo-hoo!” Probably one of the Fruit Loops, Sophie thought. They were the boys famous for such talents as burping the alphabet, booby-trapping toilets, and far worse.
“She acts like she’s in about fourth grade,” Willoughby said.
With an eyebrow raised, Sophie looked around the circle.
“Oops,” Darbie said. “We’re breaking the Code, aren’t we?”
Maggie gave a solemn nod, and Sophie knew she was about to list the entire Corn Flake Code for them.
“Never put anybody down even though they do it to you,” she said as if she were reading it. “Don’t fight back or give in to bullies; just take back the power to be yourself. Talk to Jesus about everything, because he gives you the power to be who he made you to be. Corn Flakes are always loyal to each other.”
“I always make a bags of that ‘don’t put anybody down’ part,” Darbie said.
Kitty nudged her. “Shh. Here come the boys.”
The Corn Flakes spread into a circle so the Charms could join them for warm-up. Nathan, the third Lucky Charm, soft-served the ball to Fiona, his face going strawberry-red for no reason at all except that he was Nathan.
“So what was with the girl on the pole?” Jimmy said.
“I think we’re about to find out.” Willoughby jerked her curls toward Coach Yates, who marched in their direction with Red-Haired Girl right behind her.
“Do you think she heard us?” Kitty whispered to Sophie.
“Not with that whistle going off all the time,” Sophie whispered back.
Coach Yates stopped, and Red-Haired Girl plowed into the back of her.
“Team One,” Coach Yates said to them, “meet Brooke Singletary.”
Brooke rolled her forearms up in her shirt front again. Nathan turned scarlet.
“Hey,” Brooke said. “I’m on your team now.”
Sophie was sure Brooke must have a hundred freckles per square inch on her face. They seemed to jump around when she talked, just like the rest of her. Sophie wondered if she might have to go to the bathroom.
Fiona waved. “I’m Fiona,” she said.
Th
e rest of the group said their names, except Nathan, who just bobbed his head and went radish colored. Before they even got to Sophie, Brooke said, “I’m serving first,” and snatched the ball from Fiona. Then she tore toward the serving corner of their court, untied shoelaces flapping.
“Yeah,” Fiona said, staring after her, “why don’t you just do that little thing?”
This, Sophie decided, was going to be a real test of their ability to uphold the Code.
Before all the Flakes and Charms could get into position, Brooke smacked the ball and sent it sailing just over the net. Colton Messik, a Fruit Loop, turned in time to smack it back over. Maggie jumped toward the ball, hands in perfect position to set it up, but a blaze of red was suddenly there. Brooke’s head collided dead-on with Maggie’s, and Maggie staggered backward. Jimmy stepped in and caught her.
The court burst into a chaos of shouts.
“You should have let her set it up — ”
“You’re supposed to play your position — ”
“Are you gone in the head, girl?”
“You can let go of me now!”
That last shout came from Maggie, who squirmed away from Jimmy and glowered at Brooke. “That’s not the right way to play,” she said.
“I don’t know,” Tod Ravelli called from the other side of the net. “I thought it was slammin’!”
Colton and Tod did an instant replay of Brooke ramming into Maggie, and Julia exchanged lip-curled smiles with AnneStuart and Cassie.
“You okay, Mags?” Willoughby said.
While she and Kitty examined Maggie’s forehead, Sophie watched Brooke. She tossed the ball in the air and stumbled after it, this time falling into Nathan, who went past red and into the purple color family.
“I think this might be beyond the Corn Flake Code,” Fiona muttered to Sophie.
Sophie turned to Darbie, who was shoving her hair behind her ears, over and over.
“I think she needs some Round Table help,” Sophie said to her.
Darbie directed her bird-bright dark eyes down at Sophie. “That’s easy for you to say, since you’re not on it, and I am.”
“I’m a consultant,” Sophie said, lifting her chin. “And I think I should consult with Coach Nanini.”